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Chancellor Merkel is opening gamescom for the first time

Nope. Germany was extreme about that a decade ago after a school rampage.

A lot regularely talked openly about banning them, about how counter strike awards the player points for blowing up grannies with grenades and how these so called "killerspiele" (murder games) train kids in gun usage. It was insane.

So called "Killerspiele" have been a convenient scapegoat in Germany, whenever a culprit of a killing spree did play violent games.

"Yes, he did murder his classmates because of these horrific games and not because he failed the A levels and lost his previous graduation in the process thanks to stupid state laws."

Is it still like there? I know in the US we still go through it whenever there's a bad mass shooting and they're able to link the shooter to gaming in any way. I remember there was one shooter that largely just played DDR, and they still made a big deal out of it. And shit is likely to get pretty rough under the Trump administration when a bad one happens given his stance on gaming

Video game violence & glorification must be stopped—it is creating monsters!
 

Mivey

Member
pls let me shoot nazis in wolfie 2, merkel-senpai. =(
That's a slippery slope. First it starts with having video games with swastikas in it, and next you know you annex other countries and start a world war. Just like that, nothing in between.
So clearly, censoring video games is the responsible thing to do.
 
Blood obviously is fine as well, just Nazi symbolism is not, because games are not regarded as art.

They have officially been recognized as "Kulturgut" since 2008.

Publishers self-censor because they still don't wanna risk it. Someone needs to set a precedent at some point.
 

pswii60

Member
https://www.gtai.de/GTAI/Content/EN...es-ict/fact-sheet-gaming-industry-en.pdf?v=12
mYElWa8XRmavYa3tmi5YSA.png
https://gamesmap.uk/#/companies
Ugo4hj5.jpg


EDIT: To put the map you posted in to a little more context.
 
Is it, genuinely asking since there seems to be more focus on E3/TGS.

Yes it is the biggest in terms of the number of businesses in the industry that attend it as well as by number of people that attend.

Lots of games are also announced at Gamescom, some companies specifically target Gamescom instead of E3 as well.
 

Hektor

Member
How's the German game dev scene?

Dead. The government completely shat the bed when the industry was up and coming.

Crytek is struggling (and hasn't been relevant since crisis 2, let's be honest), Yager is struggling, piranha bytes is going fine in their niche of eurojank rpgs and indie studios barely exist (can only think of three).

The only ones I can think of that are doing really good are mobile ad-game developers.

Is it still like there? I know in the US we still go through it whenever there's a bad mass shooting and they're able to link the shooter to gaming in any way. I remember there was one shooter that largely just played DDR, and they still made a big deal out of it. And shit is likely to get pretty rough under the Trump administration when a bad one happens given his stance on gaming

Fortunately it's calmed down in the last year's, but that's probably also due to the fact that we didn't had a lot of violent incidents in general.

The stigma of videogames definitely has become a lot lesser, but I'm sure if another school shooting were to happen it would pop up again, at least among the conservative press and people.
 

whyman

Member
Sad to see the woman who destroyed Europe in connection with a gaming event. Still cool I guess. Gaming gets bigger all the time.
 

Oersted

Member
Gaming events being opened by anyone with political movements is a good thing. You hear so many complaints from political spokespersons that say that "gaming is evil and is the reason why kids are violent"

This makes them show that gaming is relevant for their country's economics more than they thought it would.

Its GTA and shooters not named Moorhuhn, not videogames in general, which get the blame
 

Ladekabel

Member
No one is going to vote for her party just because she opened a video game fair, lol.

Many vote for her party because of her. I would probably vote for her directly but the CDU representative for my rural district is an asshole.

She probably wouldn't do it if she didn't think it would boost her popularity somewhat.
 
Many vote for her party because of her. I would probably vote for her directly but the CDU representative for my rural district is an asshole.

She probably wouldn't do it if she didn't think it would boost her popularity somewhat.

She displayed little consideration for her popularity during the refugee crisis. I'm not sure if she's a gamer but the Gamescom being acknowledged by Merkel has exclusively positive effects for gaming in Germany. Big faires get opened by politicans all the time, and I'm glad video games are getting the adult treatment now.
 
Merkel showing up is a nice gesture. Might be a PR stunt for the upcoming elections, but I'll take it anyway.



Is it still like there? I know in the US we still go through it whenever there's a bad mass shooting and they're able to link the shooter to gaming in any way. I remember there was one shooter that largely just played DDR, and they still made a big deal out of it. And shit is likely to get pretty rough under the Trump administration when a bad one happens given his stance on gaming

I think the situation has changed a lot. The press played a major part like 10 years ago with ridiculously bad reporting. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (one of the most important newspapers) for example had a couple TERRIBLE articles 10 years ago, obviously written by people that didn't know shit about videogames. Today, reporting is way better. The word "Killerspiele" is mostly gone too.
USK is way more lenient by now, sometimes actually giving looser ratings than PEGI. And there is no outcry anymore about certain games being 16+ or 18+ etc.
 

Akai__

Member
Videospiele sind für uns alle Neuland

Exactly what I was looking for.

Is it still like there?

It's a lot better now, but Minister Thomas De Maiziere still blamed "Killerspiele" when the shooting in Munich happened last year in July. Despite having enough evidence to blame it on mobbing and his social environment.

But it's always the easy answer, even before there was a thorough investigation. Nothing new really.
 

Krosia

Member
No. Its only gamer overreacting. Its pretty fine nowadays.

Just one year ago we had a student shooting people in munich olympia shopping mall and without any connection whatsoever to games a leading conservative politician was blaming shooters again and demanded stricter laws while tv channel prosieben took counter-strike esports out of their program because they said it was the decent thing to do, showing horror and mystery tv shows instead.

It got better in the last years but this country still has a long way to go.

I think the situation has changed a lot. The press played a major part like 10 years ago with ridiculously bad reporting. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (one of the most important newspapers) for example had a couple TERRIBLE articles 10 years ago, obviously written by people that didn't know shit about videogames. Today, reporting is way better. The word "Killerspiele" is mostly gone too.
USK is way more lenient by now, sometimes actually giving looser ratings than PEGI. And there is no outcry anymore about certain games being 16+ or 18+ etc.

Last year Battlefield 1 was rated 16 but the international version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was rejected from being taken off the list of harmful media. The USK is not as strict anymore but our ratings and laws protecting children are all over the place.
 

GAMEPROFF

Banned
Just one year ago we had a student shooting people in munich olympia shopping mall and without any connection whatsoever to games a leading conservative politician was blaming shooters again and demanded stricter laws while tv channel prosieben took counter-strike esports out of their program because they said it was the decent thing to do, showing horror and mystery tv shows instead.

It got better in the last years but this country still has a long way to go.

Yeah, one politician talked shit, which wasnt picked up by the media beside quotes. What a horrible witchhunt.
If it would not have been De Maiziere nobody would have even bothered airing the stuff.
 

Krosia

Member
Yeah, one politician talked shit, which wasnt picked up by the media beside quotes. What a horrible witchhunt.
If it would not have been De Maiziere nobody would have even bothered airing the stuff.

I think you can agree that germany is 10 years behind everyone else and games are not having the best reputation in the public opinion.
 

heklu

Neo Member
Germany is the one country in Europe that changes the color of blood in videogames into green, blue or what else.

There is also a ban or huge alteration on games like Wolfenstein where you kill Nazi's. So no, just because you don't hear them politics shouting as fanatically as the American politicians, doesn't mean they don't think the same.

In Germany, we have no blue or green blood. 99.999% of the blood is Red.
 

GAMEPROFF

Banned
Germany is the one country in Europe that changes the color of blood in videogames into green, blue or what else.
Yes, that happened around 17 years ago on a common base. Nowadays. Nope. Please stop spreading lies when you dont know for sure.

There is also a ban or huge alteration on games like Wolfenstein where you kill Nazi's. So no, just because you don't hear them politics shouting as fanatically as the American politicians, doesn't mean they don't think the same.
Nope. Only Swastiskas are a no-no and are getting replaced with Reichsadler and the rest can remain unchanged. Please stop spreading lies when you dont know for sure.
 

GAMEPROFF

Banned
The BpjM is way more relaxed than it was 5 or 10 years ago. Mortal Kombat X was released uncut, which was not possible 10 years ago.

They also recently revisited a lot of games like Gears of War 1-3, which are now avaiable without any problem
 

Krosia

Member
Nope. Only Swastiskas are a no-no and are getting replaced with Reichsadler and the rest can remain unchanged. Please stop spreading lies when you dont know for sure.

Everything related to nazi symbolism. SS runes, Hitler icon portraits or music like the Horst Wessel song. Bethesda changed the name of Hitler in german version of Wolfenstein to "our leader" and the nazis are "the regime". There is zero reference to nazis, it's not just about swastikas. Bethesda goes as far as telling german gaming journos to stop talking about nazis when they write about the german version of Wolfenstein.

See Hearts of Iron 4 released mid 2016 for reference too.

Of course they could easily fight this in court but they rather don't and pretend they are bound by german laws.

The BpjM is way more relaxed than it was 5 or 10 years ago. Mortal Kombat X was released uncut, which was not possible 10 years ago.

As said before, the BPjM denied Activisions request last year to get the international version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare of the list of banned media. And it is only because of the arcade mode with the airplane epilogue level.

Their decisions are all over the place.
 
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